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INFLUENCE OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGNS. 16"^
piu'ius maintains, in accordance with the advice of Aristotle)
to send to Greece observations of the stars for a very long period
(Porphyrins says for 1903 years) before Alexander's en
trance into Babylon, 01. 112, 2. The earliest Chaldean observations
mentioned by Almagest (probably the oldest which
Ptolemy found available for his object) only go back 721 years
before our era, that is to say, to the first Messenian war. It
is certain " that the Chaldeans knew the mean motions of the
moon with an exactness which induced the Greek astronomers
to employ their calculations for the foundation of a lunar theory."^'
The planetary observations to which they were led
by their ancient love of astrology appear also to have been
used for the true construction of astronomical tables.
The present is not the place to decide how much of the
Pythagorean views regarding the true structure of the heavens,
the course of the planets, and of the comets which, according
to Apollonius Myndius, return in long regulated orbits,! may
be due to the Chaldeans. Strabo calls the mathematician
Seleucus a Babylonian, and distinguished him in this manner|
from the Erythraean, who measured the tides of the sea. It
is sufficient to remark that the Greek zodiac was most probably
taken from " the Dodecatemoria of the Chaldeans, and
that, according to Letronne's important investigations, § it does
Ill 739). this passage four Chaklean matbeinaticians are indicated by
name, in conjanction with the Chaldean astronomers. This circuni
stance is so much the more important in an historical point of view,
because Ptolemy always mentions the observers of the heavenly bodies
under the collective name of Xa?i6atoL, as if the observations at Babylon
were only made collectively in collegiate bodies (Ideler, Handbuch der
Chronologie, bd. i., 1825, s. 198).
* Ideler, op. cit., bd. i., s. 202, 206, und 218. When a doubt is ad
vanced regarding the astronomical observations said to have been sent
by Callisthenes from Babylon to Greece, on the ground that there is no
trace of these observations of a Chaldean priestly caste to be found in
the wrifengs of Aristotle (Delambre, Hist, de V Astronomie Ancienne, t. i.,
p. 308), it is forgotten that Aristotle, in speaking {De Casio, lib. ii., cap.
12) of an occultation of Mars by the Moon, observed by himself, expressly
adds, that " similar observations had been made for many years
on the other planets by the Egyptians and the Babylonians, many of
which have come to our knowledge." On the probable use of astronomical
tables by the Chaldeans, see Chasles, in the Covtptes Rendns de
VAcadimie des Sciences, t. xxiii., 1846, p. 852-854.
t Seneca, Nat. Qucest., vii., 17.
X Compare Strabo, lib. xvi., p. 739, with lib. iii., p. 174.
§ These investigations were made in the year 1824 (see Gnigniaut,
Religions de V Antiquity, ouvrage tradnit de VAllemajid de F. Creuzer,
t. i., Part ii., p. 928). See a more recent notice by Letronne, in the
Journal d(s Savans. 1839, p. 338 and 492, as well as the A^aJyte Cri